We went to COSI on Saturday, to see the Mythbusters exhibit and everything else. Mythbusters was a lot of fun, they had tons of their props from the show, with little plaques explaining the experiments. There were stations where you could try some of the experiments, like building a little block house to see if it would stand up to a windtunnel, or whether running or walking through rain got you wetter, or how fast your reaction time was to being shot at. The little live show took off from this latter bit and actually picked a few fast folk to compete for the chance to dodge a paintball. The guy in our demo was able to dodge fast enough to avoid a shot from 75ft away. The rest of the museum was fun with lots of interactive exhibits. Gears and pulleys and body tests, and robots, and of course the laser harp, heartbeat drum and the Foucault’s pendulum in the lobby.

Sunday was the picnic/annual meeting. It was a smaller gathering than we’re used to, but the weather was nice, and the AC was running. The kids continued to amuse themselves with waterguns, when the weren’t just dumping the whole bucket on each other. Good food, good conversation and good times. And we voted to keep everything running smoothly the same way it did last year.

Last night was the topper for the week of awesome. I went to the Columbus Museum of Art to “The Sundering.” A discussion, Q&A, and book signing featuring R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood and Erin Evans. They talked about the creative process, and how the collaboration of creating The Sundering series began and went along, as six authors pulled their characters and their craft into the newest revision of D&D and The Forgotten Realms. It was awesome, as a writer, to listen to them all talk about how they create, how their outlines are just to please the marketing folks, and have very little resemblance to their final products, how they don’t know what’s on the next page. It was very cool, as a gamer, to listen to their excitement about the realms and playing D&D, and their specific characters.

I knew of Ed Greenwood before this event, but seeing him on stage, as giddy as a six-year-old, was incredible. I haven’t read much of his stuff, but now I want to read more. I didn’t know of Erin Evans prior to this event, but after her reading of a piece of her book, I want to read the others she’s written. R.A. Salvatore is why I went to the event, and I was not disappointed. Though, after years of reading Drizzt, I did not expect his Massachusetts accent. There were a lot of people there and most stayed for the signing, I was about halfway, if not more through the line, but all three authors were friendly and excited still when I got to the front of the line. I only had The Companions with me, so I asked Erin and Ed to sign the Realms map where their stories took place, they were both happy to do so, and Bob signed the title page, of course. They gave us post-it notes, so the author could spell our names correctly, too. My first personalized signed book.

This weekend is family stuff. Happy Birthday to my two nieces!!! And visiting with family both there and here. 🙂